Kim Yujeong, Jeong Su Keun
Department of Psychology, Chungbuk National University, Chungdae-ro 1 Seowon-gu, Cheongju, 28644, Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2025 Apr;87(3):768-778. doi: 10.3758/s13414-025-03050-5. Epub 2025 Mar 19.
Whereas external attention selects perceptual information, the selection of internal attention is based on internal representation in memory. Previous research has demonstrated that external and internal attention interact with each other. However, Lim and Pratt, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85, 52-63, (2023) reported that the breadth of the internal attentional window does not affect the processing of external perceptual stimuli. In that previous study, internal attention was manipulated by presenting a broad or narrow working memory array. While maintaining this array, participants performed a flanker task in which a distractor was presented at either far or near distances from the target. The results revealed no significant effect of the overlap between the internal attentional window and the external stimuli on participants' performance in the flanker task. However, the previous study varied the internal attentional window size and the flanker distance on a trial-to-trial basis, which may have prevented participants from maintaining the breadth of the internal attentional window. To investigate whether the breadth of the internal attentional window affects the processing of external stimuli under predictable attentional window breadth and flanker distance, we adopted the experimental paradigm of Lim and Pratt while keeping the internal attentional window breadth and the flanker distance consistent within a block. Our findings demonstrated that flanker processing was disrupted when the flanker fell within the breadth of the internal attentional window but only when the attentional window breadth was predictable. These findings suggest that internal attention affects processing of external stimuli when top-down knowledge of the task context is available.
外部注意力选择感知信息，而内部注意力的选择则基于记忆中的内部表征。先前的研究表明，外部注意力和内部注意力相互作用。然而，林和普拉特在《注意力、感知与心理物理学》第85卷，第52 - 63页（2023年）报告称，内部注意力窗口的广度不会影响外部感知刺激的处理。在之前的那项研究中，通过呈现宽或窄的工作记忆阵列来操纵内部注意力。在保持该阵列的同时，参与者执行一项侧翼任务，其中干扰项在距离目标较远或较近的位置呈现。结果显示，内部注意力窗口与外部刺激之间的重叠对参与者在侧翼任务中的表现没有显著影响。然而，先前的研究在每次试验中改变内部注意力窗口大小和侧翼距离，这可能阻止了参与者保持内部注意力窗口的广度。为了研究在可预测的注意力窗口广度和侧翼距离下，内部注意力窗口的广度是否会影响外部刺激的处理，我们采用了林和普拉特的实验范式，同时在一个组块内保持内部注意力窗口广度和侧翼距离一致。我们的研究结果表明，当侧翼位于内部注意力窗口的广度范围内时，侧翼处理会受到干扰，但仅当注意力窗口广度是可预测的时才会如此。这些发现表明，当有任务情境的自上而下的知识时，内部注意力会影响外部刺激的处理。
